Mason Rivers, "This Is For Someone I Loved"

“Goodbye, Lois, and I forgive you for everything I did to you.”

-Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men

Your sister doesn’t think you killed yourself. She came to my parent’s house the day after your funeral, where I was staying for the weekend, and asked what I thought about the pastor’s eulogy. I said I thought it was nice.

The pastor didn’t know you, she said. In fact he’d never met you, and she didn’t like that. Being your twin, of course, she knew you better than anyone. She said she hated how the pastor made it sound like you killed yourself.

She told me that the police found you at your desk with an open Mountain Dew and a box of Oreos like it explained everything away. I laughed with her anyways; it was just like you.

Your sister confirmed the things that had been masquerading as rumors since your death: that you hadn’t spoken to anyone in your family for nearly two weeks. That there was a car wreck you’d somehow walked away from a few days before they found you dead. That you’d run the car so hard into a tree the engine was found in the dirt several feet away. That no one was really sure, but you died sometime between Thursday night and Saturday morning.

That there was no note. This, overall, your sister believes absolves any suspicion of suicide.

“He would have been the person to write a long fucking letter,” she said, “you know it.” And I did know it. I used to keep those letters from you; I knew it very well.

“Do you have any questions?” your sister asked when we’d been quiet for too long. I was sitting at the kitchen table with my legs drawn up to my chest. She was defensive against something, and I didn’t know what else to ask.